The present invention relates to automatic food cookers and particularly to the fryer type in which the operations of feeding, frying, and discharging the food are automatically controlled.
More specifically, the present invention includes an apparatus which is especially adapted for cooking frozen food which, in the uncooked condition, is susceptible to damage from handling, such as frozen potato pieces which are typically known as french fries.
The apparatus of the present invention is particularly suitable for use in institutions and restaurants wherein a relatively high volume of cooked food product is desired and wherein a minimum amount of operator labor and attention is required.
In many institutions and restaurants, it is desirable that food be processed quickly, efficiently, and under sanitary conditions with a minimum amount of operator labor and attention. Further, within these constraints, it is desirable to provide a consistently uniform cooked food product.
Many types of food can be most efficiently handled by restaurants if the food is received at the restaurant in a frozen condition so that it can be readily stored, without spoilage, until cooking. Thus, it would be desirable to provide an automatic device for cooking frozen food and which would allow relatively large amounts of frozen food to be initially loaded into the device so that frequency of reloading by the operator would be greatly reduced.
With some frozen foods, and especially with french fries, automatic handling and cooking processes must overcome a number of problems. For example, a typical frozen french fry may have a generally square-shaped cross section of about 1/4 inch on a side and a length of between two and six inches. When such french fries are mechanically processed during cooking they may tend to break, owing to the force of mechanical members moving against the french fries.
Further, when frozen french fries are loaded into a large pile, from which pile they are to be continuously removed for further processing, removal of the fries from the pile can cause the french fries to break, owing to the weight of the pile of french fries acting to prevent the french fries within the pile from being easily withdrawn.
Thus, in providing a device for automatically cooking french fries, it would be desirable to provide mechanisms which would gently handle the frozen french fries to minimize the breakage and other damage to the fries.
Frozen french fries typically have a relatively high surface water content which is given up during cooking. In automatically cooking french fries, it would be desirable to remove the steam generated when the frozen french fries first contact the hot cooking liquid in order to prevent subsequent condensation of the steam in and around the cooking apparatus and to maintain an acceptable ambient atmosphere for operators and other personnel in the area of the cooking apparatus.
In restaurants, it would also be desirable to provide the capability for automatically cooking french fries at a varying production rate. Further, in order to ensure a uniform quality product, it would be desirable to provide means for cooking the french fries to the same degree or extent even though the cooking liquid temperature may fluctuate.
With such an automatic apparatus, it would be additionally advantageous to provide an enclosing means for reducing spattering or spilling of the cooking liquid and for reducing any fire hazards.
Further, it would be advantageous to provide for the operation of the apparatus in a manner that would extend the usable life of the cooking liquid by reducing the amount of broken food particles or foreign matter that can fall into and/or remain in the cooking liquid.
In a cooking apparatus using gas combustion for heating, it would also be beneficial to provide an energy efficient system in which discharging combustion exhaust gases are used to heat incoming air to thereby decrease the heat input required of the gas.